How Do You Spell "Hor d'Oeuvres"

Our first catering gig went off without a hitch, other than the food being done an hour-and-a-half too late (we wouldn't want to break our tradition) and the two single girls of the bunch missing the season finales to "Say Yes to the Dress" and "Four Weddings" (shows that, interestingly, air when lonely single girls are home alone on Friday nights). However, we were able to catch marathons of VH1's newest hit show, "Undateable" all weekend. Although the show was aimed for men, we thought we might get tips on where we go wrong (or, things we do right):

• We do not own Hawaiian shirts - even for Hawaiian Shirt Day at work. However, we have fake flower leis and Mardi Gras beads galore.
• We throw out all items of clothing prior to unfortunate yellow sweat stains (and by "throw out" we mean "donate to Goodwill and let them throw out").
• We have been known to drop the occasional "BOOYAH!" but only to show potentials that we watch ESPN.
• We may or may not own nunchucks.
• We wouldn't mind honing our skills at Guitar Hero - but only to ace "Don't Stop Believin'" on expert. We definitely do not aspire to be in Rock Band.
• We do not own jean shorts, and we laugh at anyone who does. Also, we strictly adhere to the "one-piece-of-denim-at-a-time" rule.
• Since we are so passive-aggressive, we readily employ the rule "Do not ask out via text message" and, in fact, avoid "asking out" period.
• One of us may need to ditch her Ed Hardy gear to avoid being picked up by The Situation. (This may have been advised nine months ago, but hey, we live in Iowa and missed that memo.)
• Neither one of us drives a windowless van.
• We are not wimpy drinkers and are very okay with boxed wine - especially if it costs $2. And, we do know better than to order wine at a sporting event and instead opt for $6 tall-boys of Bud Lite.
• We do not wear bluetooth equipment but had a lot of fun with the headsets while working at Old Navy.
• The "no tank tops" rule does not apply to us because we're girls, and they make our boobs look big.
• We can't decode vanity plates despite two advanced degrees in English.
• Oh yeah: and we can cook - and host kick-ass parties to boot!

Both of us took the day off of work to prepare for the most recent party. Given the fact that we were intensely hungover, it is nothing short of a miracle that we accomplished what we did. Granted, our prep time took three hours longer than anticipated, likely due to a puke-stop in the Target bathroom and intense calculations as to just how much money was left in the bank account prior to spending a small fortune to feed eight people. We broke the labor down like this: one in charge of the three D's (decorations, desserts, and drinks), and one in charge of the rest of the food.

Unfortunately, we did not take a picture of the Jungle Juice contained in a small trash can or the playlist that included every cheesy graduation song ever written. If you would like, we could petition Guitar Hero to pick up Vitamin C's "Graduation: Friends Forever" or Natasha Bedingfield's "Unwritten." We are sure that after listening to those on repeat for five hours we have them memorized.

The homemade truffles were started in a drunken stupor the night before. After all, wine does go with chocolate. It is shocking that they turned out as well as they did, especially after forgetting them in the refrigerator until an hour before the guests showed up.

Clearly the most difficult dish of the night: hand-dipped chocolate-covered strawberries.

The third (and least successful because it did not involve chocolate) dessert of the evening: fruit salsa and homemade cinnamon-sugar chips. Those would have turned out better if we had an oven that didn't burn half of everything we put in it.

The ever-popular asparagus roll-ups made a reappearance - and obviously quickly disappeared, as this tray was full 30 seconds before the picture was taken.

We heard the barbecued shrimp was good but were too slow on the uptake to try any. Also, we should have soaked the skewers, as we almost burned the apartment complex to the ground. Good thing we disabled the smoke detectors prior to cooking.

We're not sure the Swiss chard and bacon dip should have turned out with such a vibrantly pink hue, but whatever we did wrong made it absolutely delicious. Thanks, Martha.

Perhaps the most popular dish of the evening, the parsnip-chorizo-Manchego "sandwiches" were made completely blindly: who has ever tried a parsnip?

Clearly, these were horrible, and everyone hated them. We topped endives with mandarin oranges, chevre, candied walnuts, and a balsamic glaze - and promptly devoured all of them.

This was a two-part hor d'oeuvre: antipasto skewers with a pesto dipping sauce.

Last but not least, we have a homemade guacamole with non-homemade tortilla chips. Apparently everything we served accompanied some sort of chip or skewer. (This also includes our centerpieces: photos attached to skewers stuck in sand - see to the upper-left of guacamole for proof.)

Due to three dinner parties within seven days, we have decided to take a break and just cook for ourselves. For at least a week. Or until someone asks.